*sound of a coffin creaking*
School and house hunting put together equals a bitch.
I'm going to assume you know about the lore of this RP place. If not, it is essential to know, so go to that link posted earlier (the site's actually pretty well organized...) and read up on everything.
Two thousand and thirty nine years in the past...
Alaric gripped his lance, growing colder in his confusion and anticipation of the impending doom. Beside him stood his fighting partner and friend, Lois. Lois was the girl, not the woman, the girl, who had been one of those who had been permanently damaged by the "Children of Light"'s regime. She had been raped nineteen times the past week, before she approached the "Valiant Queen" Maria, strangled her, and threw her off of the palace balcony. She had been only fifteen years of age. Her grip on her axe was firm, not shaky and halfhearted like Alaric's.
The mob seethed closer. There were trained soldiers, elite members of society, filthy peasants and and even many of the animal-men. Alaric shifted his sheild in front of his body, and lowered his lance. The bronze tip of his lance shook noticeably, which probably didn't help the Free's efforts to intimidate the angry people. Alaric wished in his heart that his hatred could be like that of his snarling partner.
As the former Corrupted charged, Alaric felt heavy sleet swirling around him. Arrows stuck into his sheild as he made lame attempts to look like an expert. His friend Lois had no sheild, but only an axe and some leather armor. She crumpled and died on the ground as an arrow sank into her brow. Alaric cried out and shook his fallen friend, but in vain, as the line of furious people reached the Free...
The Year 2047-Present
Rescel could almost feel the Spring thaw melting the snow away. The brightness of the sun felt good, rather than hot, and made walking beside the diplomatic convoy, rather than in the carraiges, much more tolerable. Rescel found it idiotic- What if an assassin snuck past the escort and into the carraiges? The carraiges weren't equipped with armed bodyguards, but only watchmen. The wagons that had ample space even with provisions and supplies could easily be ridden in, so why tire the escort?
Rescel could see the second gates coming up. There was the border, and then the secondary border. Both were heavily monitored.
Rescel didn't expect the border guards to react as they did. Since Zillara was the neighboring country, these people were probably used to the sight of the orange uniforms of Zillara.
The gate did not open as the front of the convoy stopped in front of it suddenly. The wagons behind it were slow to stop, and they all comically crashed into each other.
As the merchants who had come to trade all fretted over the bottle of apple oil that had been broken, or the vial of garrum that had gone missing, the Lord Tyrone stepped out of his carraige, a flustered expression on his face, and called up to the guards.
"Is there an explanation for not opening the gates? I believe the messengers from the first border should have informed you of my coming!"
"The High King of the Mountains, Jerod, has decided that you are not to pass! He warns you to turn away or else he will use deadly force!" responded the watchman, who was being watched over by an excessively buff armoured knight with rather low-quality equipment.
Lord Tyrone was silent in observant shock as he noticed that the watchman wore not the definitive blue of Claros, but rather simply stood clad in undecorated war gear. "Madness!" Lord Tyrone finally responded, "I demand my arranged audience with Lord Claros!" He shook his fist at the guard. "Bandits do not rule Claros or myself! What dog are you to deny a diplomat, a noble, his well intended passage to a diplomatic discussion?"
A stumbling bare-chested figure suddenly appeared and hung lazily over the wall. He had a large bottle of what was presumably liqour in his hand.
"You shut your wee mouth, pampered one! We wipe ou' own asses round 'ere!" and with that Jerod, the bandit king of East Nocturne, threw the bottle at Lord Tyrone. It smashed over his head, knocking him down and covering his clothes with ale.
How dare you! Thought all of the escort's members at once. A sniper shot off an arrow at Jerod, which cut off one of his locks.
"Ye dared! Kill 'em all, the swine!" roared Jerod. The gates opened fiercely as a varied mob of bandits charged through.
Rescel was not telling himself that there were too many people when he charged into the horde with his fellows. He only thought as everybody else did when there was a danger of what he was protecting, being destroyed.
As Lord Tyrone's guard crashed into the enemy lines, bandits slipped past their sparse numbers and began to raid the merchant convoy. The merchants' terrified cries for help rang with the din of furious battle.
Of course, with all of the bandits' eyes trained on money and lluxuries, their formation was shaky, and many were cut down with ease. Rescel knew what the scumbag directly in front of him was after, so he traded him his position in line for his vitals. Ressen retook his place in line to discover that Lord Tyrone's guard had enveloped the enemy forces, surrounding them as their reinforcements poured out.
"Lord Tyrone!" yelled a soldier in panic. Ressen looked up in wonder as a lance scratched his shoulder. Lord Tyrone was being held by that drunken slug, Jerod!
"Stop yer fightin', royal pets!" Jerod said with no sign of drunkenness at all. "Or I kill ya meal ticket!"
All of Tyrone's guard lowered their weapons with hopeless expressions.
"Ha har! Ah knew it!" Jerod said with a shit-eating grin. "Kill 'em all, men!"
The bandits crashed into the Zillaran line. One part of Rescel saw continuing the war of attrition, but the other part sought to save Lord Tyrone. He thrust his Light Brand in the direction of Jerod. A burst of light sailed out of the blade towards Jerod. To Rescel's dismay, Jerod dodged...and was hit by a short axe, thrown at him from below.
"Arrhargh!!" Jerod cried in shock at the stump that formerly held his hand, and Lord Tyrone. The axe boomeranged back to a paladin, who caught Lord Tyrone and the axe, then stampeded away.
"Men of Zillara!" bellowed Sephro, the commander of Rescel's unit, "Pull back! We have Tyrone!"
As the Zillaran guard retreated, jeers and insults were hurled between the sides, and after very breif scuffles with the bandits raiding the merchant caravans, the unit was able to get away.
"Lord Tyrone! Are you injured?" asked the paladin who had rescued him. Tyrone dismounted the horse and brushed himself off.
"The only thing that has been wounded is my feelings." Tyrone said jokingly. Then seriously, "When I get back to the king, I'll make sure Jarod pays. And I'll make sure we get to the bottom of this."